


the moon shines on you

by captainriza



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Fluff, Gen, Implied Relationships, Nanny Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Apocalypse, general softness and purity, good omens - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 11:09:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19973080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainriza/pseuds/captainriza
Summary: "Crowley looks at the boy—still a boy, just larger and ganglier and a touch more real—with fondness. He remembers summer after summer in the country, picking Warlock up and swinging him into the forks of the large peach trees just outside the gardens. Pick the heaviest fruits, he remembers saying, the ones that are just about to fall are the sweetest. "Warlock visits the bookshop after the apocalypse that Wasn't. Crowley is at happy to see him.





	the moon shines on you

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for @hannaloony on tumblr. Their lovely artwork inspired the soft nanny crowley we all deserve. sorry for the formatting, ao3 likes to kick my ass sometimes.

A few years and change after the apocalypse that didn’t, bells chime from the bookshop’s entrance and a tall and disheveled Warlock enters. Crowley, who had been resting his feet against a defunct nineteenth-century cash register on the counter and pretending to sleep, gives the door a hard glare. 

“We’re closed,” he says, harshly, eyeing the flimsy lock and wondering if cast-iron was perhaps the way to go to avoid interruptions. 

A beyond-cursory look at the boy, however, determines that this particular patron is more than a tortured academic or painfully lost tourist. No, this was someone Crowley knew—and even stranger, someone from a very short list of humans he still knew. 

“The door was open,” Warlock says, throwing his hands in a lazy gesture at the knob, and Crowley scoffs. This is most certainly Warlock, grown to something approximating full size. 

The top of his wily black hair scrapes the doorway as he ducks and enters. Crowley scans his face again just to check—once distinctively narrow and often sporting disgust, now wide with a strong brow and a stronger chin—and lets out a puff of air. He doesn’t expect to feel warmth for humans, so the feeling still manages to unsettle him. Standing there, in red slacks and a woolen jumper, Warlock looks the same as he did when Crowley lifted him up on his knee to reach the biscuit cupboard just a decade ago. 

_Maybe he has enough traces of his younger self left_ , Crowley thinks. _Enough to make him remember_. Perhaps this new Warlock was a more human one, now that he was grown, but it was impossible to tell. 

“Do you–“ Warlock hesitates in the doorway, looking at the light of the oil lamps dancing off the shelves, disguising the deep recesses of the bookshop with a bright warm light. “Are you really closed?”

 _Depends_ , Crowley wants to say. He wonders why he’s here, why now. Would he remember any of it? Now that the present had been altered, it seemed the past had, too, been affected. Warlock certainly hadn’t recognized either Aziraphale or Crowley at his birthday party, though Crowley was willing to attribute that to the dastardly fake and severely distracting mustache Aziraphale had failed to pull off. 

Still. Him and the angel had seen Adam and the Them since, and it was different. Memories were altered when the thin string of Time was plucked that day at the airfield, and the truth was still manifesting itself years later. _Time for a test_ , Crowley thinks, ignoring Aziraphale’s voice in the back of his head warning him against doing such a thing in favor of discreetly pushing his sunglasses up to cover his eyes. 

“What do you think? Does it _look_ closed?” Crowley asks, laying it on. He remembers creating voices for Warlock, to read aloud to him at night as different characters in his horribly mundane bedtime stories. He remembers the voice he used for the moon sounded a bit too much like Hastur, but it made Warlock laugh, so he did it until his throat was sore. 

_Stop that_ , Warlock would giggle, and Crowley would clear his throat and growl _the moon shines on you, dear one, and it’ll eat you alive._

For the first time, Warlock looks directly at Crowley. He starts to answer, but seems to get stuck somewhere between pleasantry and rudeness. Crowley watches as his eyes flit across Crowley’s face, then to his hair, then to the ground. 

“Have we met before?” 

Warlock says it like he’s not expecting an answer, short and curt. He steps forward without warning. When Warlock leans over the desk, inspecting Crowley, Crowley takes his feet off the desk so they’re face-to-face. Warlock’s bright blue eyes narrow. 

“I’ve got one of those faces,” Crowley says, which is a lie. 

“Maybe, but I _know_ you,” Warlock presses, which is the opposite. 

Crowley waits in baited anticipation. Seven years of their lives spent creating a human, albeit in the particular way both he and Aziraphale went about ‘creating’ anything. Warlock could in fact be a monster, or a saint, or anything in between. A spark of disappointment starts to fuel itself in Crowley’s chest. He thought their presence had been strong enough to last. _Ah, well,_ he thought, _maybe for the better._

“Don’t strain yourself, love. I’m sure I’m not who you’re thinking of.” 

Warlock slams his fist down on the counter in childish glee, and the other shoe drops. Crowley flicks his tongue out in an effort to hide a growing smile. He remembers. 

“You! You were…” He grasps for words, and his face screws up. “You’re not a woman at all,” Warlock said in disbelief. 

Crowley laughs out loud, short and sharp. He could feel what the boy meant—that Crowley was not human, and had never disguised that fact particularly well in their seven years of close acquaintance. 

“Verrrrry good, Warlock,” he says, and watches as a true smile spreads across Warlock’s face. “You’ve cracked that mystery wide open. A regular Sherlock.” 

“You _are_ Nanny,” Warlock says, still smiling. “I don’t know how, but you are. I knew you were here. The sign said closed and I came in anyways, and somehow I just _knew_.” 

Crowley looks at the boy—still a boy, just larger and ganglier and a touch more real—with fondness. He remembers summer after summer in the country, picking Warlock up and swinging him into the forks of the large peach trees just outside the gardens. _Pick the heaviest fruits,_ he remembers saying, _the ones that are just about to fall are the sweetest._

“I have strange dreams,” Warlock says, snapping Crowley back to the present. “I don’t know how there’s an explanation for you being here, but I think I understand it well enough.” 

_Maybe we did it right_ , Crowley thinks, as Warlock shuffles from side to side and unconsciously reaches a hand towards Crowley’s hair. 

_Stop tugging,_ Crowley remembers saying. _If you tug too hard, it’ll fall out and turn into snakes. They’ll chase you everywhere and climb up your arms and bite you until you bleed_. But Warlock hadn’t been afraid—he would laugh and laugh and laugh, and Crowley would have to trade him a lollipop to make the boy let go. 

“Warlock, is that you?” 

Aziraphale emerges from the depths of the shop in a cloud of dust, looking delighted. A pit in Crowley’s stomach evaporates, the same way it always does when the angel is around. 

“He remembers,” Crowley says. “Look how _tall_ he is.” 

Crowley gestures at Warlock, who’s eyes couldn’t get wider. Aziraphale lets out a soft little noise. He sizes up Warlock, frozen in the entrance, and gives him a beaming smile.

“Dear boy,” Aziraphale says, dusting his lapels and joining Crowley’s side, “I’m so glad you came to visit.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Visit me @wildecrow on tumblr for more good omens shenanigans.


End file.
